Letter: Mill probably didn't get name from area's elm trees

There is a plaque in Falls Park that is dedicated to Camperdown Mill, stating that the mill was named for the numerous Camperdown elms that grew on the property. This is a highly improbable story that has been passed along and repeated by local historians over the years. The Camperdown elm is a mutant and can only be reproduced by manual grafting. The first record of a Camperdown elm in the United States comes in 1872 when one was imported and planted in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Camperdown Mill No. 1 began operations in 1874. That would give just two years for a number of Camperdown elms to be grafted by an experienced hand and then to grow to a size that would catch the eye of the builders. It is not possible for there to have been a stand of cultivated Camperdown elms around the falls at that time.

The fact of the matter is that there is no documented account of the naming of Camperdown. There are a number of theories of how the mill got the name, all of them more logical than what appears on the plaque.

Dan Goodwin

Simpsonville

The writer is a Board Member of The Camperdown Mills Historical Society.

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Letter: Mill probably didn't get name from area's elm trees

There is a plaque in Falls Park that is dedicated to Camperdown Mill, stating that the mill was named for the numerous Camperdown elms that grew on the property.